WORLD BUSINESS BRIEFING: EUROPE; NEW FUNDS FOR MILLENNIUM DOME

Threatened once again with bankruptcy, the operators of Britain's ill-starred Millennium Dome attraction won a fresh injection of $74 million from National Lottery funds to remain open until the end of the year. The dome has so far cost about $957 million in public financing but has failed to attract enough visitors to cover costs. It was sold in July for $157 million to a consortium led by Nomura International of Japan, which takes over at the end of the year with plans to change the attraction into a theme park. An opposition politician, Peter Ainsworth, said the debacle had ''gone well beyond a national joke.'' Alan Cowell (NYT).